What's Once More
by stardvst
Summary: By the age of fourteen, he had already died three times. His soul had only left his body for mere seconds, but it was still categorized as death, and that scared him. But as he stands before that monster, wounded and bleeding, he realizes that one more death, this one final, might not be as bad as before.
1. Chapter I

By the age of fourteen, he had already died three times. His soul had only left his body for mere seconds, but it was still categorized as death.

The first was when he was six. He had fell while riding his bike and knocked his head against the asphalt, which sent him into a coma. While in the ER as they stitched him up, he had floated above his body and watched the monitor go flat for only a couple of seconds as they placed defibrillator pads on his chest.

Of course then he had no idea what that had meant, and afterwards as he woke up in a hospital bed greeted by watery smiles from his twin and parents, he had written it off as a dream. After all he was only six, and after mentioning it to his friends who just laughed at him, he banished the thought.

The second was when he was eleven. He had been defending himself against the bully of the school, Matt, and the taller boy had shoved him against the lockers before dropping him. The bully had kicked him a couple of times before punting him down a set of concrete stairs. An hour later, as school was out, the janitor found him on the floor in a pool of his own blood as he bled from his head and a gash across his stomach and ribs from the pipe he had smashed into at the bottom.

Once again, while on the operating table, he watched the heart monitor go flat and his parents and twin cry behind the one-way glass as the defibrillator was placed on his chest and he was sucked back into his broken and battered body.

For years to come he would trace the scar from that pipe on his stomach through his shirt when he passed Matt; the bully had left him alone since but always snarled at him in the halls and shoved him when he would walk past his house on his way home.

The third was not due to injuries, but the lack of a soul inside his body. It had been his twin and his' first summer in Gravity Falls and during her epic sock opera, his possessed body had fallen, knocking the soul of a one Bill Cipher from it. The few seconds between the demon's soul being literally knocked out of his body to him reclaiming it left his body, according to his spooked twin afterwards, cold and lifeless.

By all accounts, Mason 'Dipper' Pines had died three times before his fourteenth birthday, although the last had not been put down in any hospital records ever.

His twin joked it off as luck when he realized it one night, bolting up in bed and sweating. He had grasped at the sheets and tried to come to terms that he had _died_ three times before. Three times his soul had left his body, his heart had stopped, his breathing had ceased.

His whimpers had drawn his twin sister from her slumber and the sound of her brother crying in bed had forced her from her own. She had walked across the hall to his room where the door was slightly ajar and had crawled in with him.

Nightmares for the Pines twins were not unusual. It was often one was awoken by night terrors that depicted shape-shifting monsters and inter-dimensional one-eyed demons and hidden evil behind bright colors and pop music. There were nights that the only thing that got them through it was each other, holding the former through their visions.

That night was no different.

She had moved the covers down and crawled under them, grasping his hands. "Say it with me."

They had a system for nights like these; when visions of their fated time in Gravity Falls reduced them to shaking, whimpering (and sometimes screaming) messes. They had worked out a system the night they returned to their perfectly normal and ordinary town of Piedmont and Dipper had woken the whole house, screaming in terror.

Both Mabel and his parents had rushed to his room to find him thrashing around in his sheets, the fabric wrapping tighter and tighter around his throat as his flailed around, crying and screaming in pain. His parents had immediately rushed to his side, panicked.

But Mabel had been frozen in place, doomed to watch her brother writhe about on the bed while his own mind entrapped him. Phrases had escaped through his panicked mind, scaring her as they had floated past her ears. _No! Please, don't hurt—no! Mabel! Wendy! Grunkle Stan!_

The one that had broke her heart as she stood in the doorway and her mom cdialed 911 while her dad cut the offending sheets from his body still haunted her to this day.

 _Mabel, don't trust him!_

Now, as she grasped his hand and turned on the totally-not-a night light he had by his bed for nights like this one, she repeated herself. "Say it with me."

Deep, shaking breaths followed those words and she just gripped his fingers tighter against her chest. She laid his palm against her chest, letting him feel the rhythmic, soothing beat and his breath became more even.

"Okay, breathe. What's your name?"

A heaving chest and corrupted lungs stutter through a spit-out answer. "M-my name is D-dipper Pines."

Deep breath in, deep breath out. "Good. How old are you?"

"Fifteen."

"Yes. And where's Bill?" He freezes against her at the name, and she responds with a reassuring, sympathetic smile. She'll wait.

"H-he's gone. He's dead." Her other hand finds his, covering his mouth to block the silent cries that crawl from his throat, and she brings it to her chest. "Yeah. It's okay."

"It's okay." Another deep breath, she releases a breath with him.

"Yes. You're safe."

"I-I'm safe."

"Say it again."

His voice is stronger now, tears drying against his cheeks and voice raw but he's not shaking anymore, which is progress. Small steps are still steps. "I'm safe."

"You're safe."

"Yes."

"I'm safe."

"Y-you're safe."

"Yes, see?" her hands press against his, which are at her chest, trying to show him that her heart's still beating, that it's her in front of him, not a hallucination. That she's okay. She's safe. She's alive. "I'm okay."

Released breath. "Yeah."

"Wendy's safe."

His head shoots up at that, and her heart breaks in two at the sight of his eyes. They're watery and broken and open and so _vulnerable_ and it's then she knows her suspicions were correct. Once again, he'd dreamed of that day in the bunker.

Guilt hits her like a train crash and she suddenly finds it hard for _her_ to breathe. If she hadn't pushed him into the room with Wendy all because of his crush on her, he wouldn't have had to fight the shaper-shifting monster that's given him nightmares since.

While in the bunker he had to choose between two Wendy's, and the horrifying possibility that he might have picked the wrong one haunts him. The thought that the one he buried the ax in might have not been the monster clone of the redhead lumberjack follows him around, and Mabel often finds him reaching up and rubbing his trapper's hat when he's making important decisions.

He'll reach up and rub, second-guessing himself, all confidence in himself gone, and every time it happens her heart aches. "Say it."

Tears well at the corners of his eyes, and through shaky lips he says it. "W-wendy's safe."

"Again."

"Wendy's safe."

"Who's safe?"

A gulp, slight hesitation, but she'll take it. "Wendy."

"Stay here, I'll be right back. Don't move."

A stuffed red wolf takes place of her hands in his, and she's hopping off the bed, running back to her room across the hall, making sure to dance around the squeaky board in the hallway that would wake their parents.

She swipes his phone off her nightstand where it sits, charging, and smiles down at the wallpaper. It's a picture of all of them; the Mystery crew. They're out in the forest and she remembers that day well. They had gone back up for Labor Day weekend after school started and Grunkle Stan insisted they needed a family photo.

Soos is off to the left, smiling and giving his trademark thumbs-up while she hangs from the fence in front of him, showing off her braces. Dipper is to her right, smiling slightly and behind him Stan is smiling wide and holding up bunny ears on his great-nephew.

Directly next to him is Ford, dressed in his familiar trenchcoat and he's smiling, holding one of his journals. In front of him, on the other side of the fence is Chompers, the goat, and in the bottom lefts sits a redhead with a green flannel shirt and a trapper hat identical to the one hanging on Dipper's bedpost.

She's leaning against the fence, arms over her knees, smiling at the camera, and just looking at the photo makes the older Pine twin long for her home away from home.

Then she's tiptoeing back across the hall while hitting a contact and holding it out to her twin brother who takes it in one shaky hand. She slips beneath the covers again as he puts it to his ear and exhales.

She hears the ringing, and smiles when she hears the click and a soft, familiar voice that has Dipper bringing a hand to his mouth, choking back sobs of relief.

"Mason?"

Mabel smiles at her brother, reassuring as his breathing becomes stilted again. She knew the lumberjack would be up at 3 in the morning; the redhead had revealed that she got up early every morning to set out breakfast for her father and brothers before taking a run through Gravity Fall's woods.

"Is that you?"

There's a few seconds of silence and silent tears drip down her brother's face, and the redhead on the other side of the phone gets it. Her voice grows softer, if possible and her voice floats through, loud enough that she can hear. "Hey, man, focus on my voice. I'm okay, you're okay. I'm here in Gravity Falls, wearing a blue and white pine tree baseball cap and perfectly fine and dandy, waiting to see you guys."

A shaky breath meets her and Mabel squeezes her brother's shoulder as he collects himself enough to talk through his raw throat and broken mouth. "H-hey."

"Hey yourself. Is Mabel there?"

He nods, and the redhead on the other side seems to know how he responded to her question. "You're lucky, you know. Your sister loves you very much."

He swallows, pushing down more tears. "Yeah, I know."

The twin sister slips from the room, smiling, closing the door behind her. She leans her back against it, closing her eyes at the low murmur that floats from his room as he slowly clams down at the sound of his best friend and crush's voice.

They're going to be okay.

 _He's_ going to be okay.

* * *

 **A/N: see you on Wednesdays and Sundays!**

 **-a.m**


	2. Chapter II

As someone who knows all about nightmares, who could categorize herself as an _expert_ in night terrors that keep you up until the sun peaks over the hills and the birds sing good morning, she's not convinced this _isn't_ a nightmare.

 _This has to be._

A variety of different faces greet her when she finally floats to the top of her sea of unconsciousness, aching from every part of her body and she groans as voices reach her subconscious.

A pounding headache greets her as she cracks her eyes open for the first time in two months, and the world swims before her in pain and tears before sharpening so she can make out the faces of those before her.

There's her parents directly off to her right, sobbing happily as she quirks a smile at them, painfully, but it's worth it. "Hey there love-bug."

Her attention is caught by that nickname, and she furrows her brow. It's been years since her dad has called her that but his hand rests on hers and his eyes meet hers, swimming with liquid and she's confused.

She opens her mouth, trying to speak, but the only thing that leaves is a squeak that has painful bolts of lightning crawling down her throat and she squeezes her eyes closed. Another hand encases her left hand and wraps their fingers around hers but she can't look, she can't breathe because it hurts, _oh god it hurts,_ and he's not here.

Her family's here, her parents, Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Ford, Grenda, Candy, Soos and even Pacifica and Soos' girlfriend, Melody, but there's two people missing that she could see and she can't imagine where they might be or where they might _not_ be because all she can see is his face, bloody and battered and his body pinned beneath the twisted seat of metal.

Suddenly she's back in the twisted hull of the burning bus shaking him, yelling for help until her throat is raw with smoke and panic and the fire's _spreading_ , licking at his prone body and she's screaming as the pool of blood grows larger and larger and there's a beeping sound that ticks at her brain and grows with every beat of her heart but she can't focus on it because he's _bleeding_ and _dying_ and there's _nothing she can do—_

Her parents are crying as they're shoved out of the room, held back by nurses as the doctors rush in. Their little girl is convulsing, eyes rolled up in their sockets and she's screaming, thrashing, and the heart monitor is going crazy as she begins to foam at the mouth, choking on her words.

The foam around her lips turns red as they rip the blankets from her flailing form and two nurses have to pin her arms and legs to keep her still as another tries to inject something into her HIV but she's still writhing too bad on the bed despite the two nurses holding her down.

Suddenly, she stops.

There's silence as the monitor hits flat and reaches the unknown and a bubble pops. Her parents are crying and her great uncles are fighting the nurses holding them but a door swings close in front of them and they watch hopelessly as nurses and doctors rush to save their little girl's life.

One rips open the front of her hospital gown, privacy discarded, and a wheeled cart is parked next to her bed, where she lays still and unresponsive. Two pads are removed and they call out numbers as they press the pads to her sides.

Her body jerks once, twice, chest jumping off the bed but besides that she doesn't move, foam still dripping from her open lips as her eyes stay glued to the ceiling.

Again the pads are pressed and her body twists again but the neon line on the monitor stays as flat as it was before and they're pasted to the window, hoping, wishing, _praying._

Finally as the pads are pressed into her sides again her body flails and her eyes snap around the room as her chest heaves. There's no time to breathe in relief before the door's being opened and her bed's being rushed from the room and although they run, they can't keep up with the little girl on the big white bed which makes her look smaller.

They're stopped by a door locking behind the running doctors and the final glimpse they get of her is a pale hand flopping over the side of the bed and bouncing as the bed rolls over the sanitized tiles of the hospital floor.

* * *

It's nighttime when she next wakes, she finds herself floating in a hazy sea that can only be sedatives and pain medication, and she painfully forces her eyes open.

The room is dark; the only light coming from the heart monitor she's hooked to and the glowing red button by her bed that's there in case something happens that requires immediate and swift help. Mabel's eyes roam the room and she finds her entire family asleep in the room.

At the end of her bed is a couch, and on it is piled most of her extended family. Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford are leaning on each other, snoring softly, and Soos and Melody are curled up together while Grenda hangs on the armrest. Candy is camped out next to them in a chair and after further studying, she sees Pacifica asleep, curled up in the armchair in the corner.

Her parents are leaned over the side of her bed, resting their hands by her, asleep to the world in the hard hospital chairs and her eyes rake over each one in the dim machine light.

The older twin's eyes finally sweep over the last person in the room, who's awake and whose eyes glimmer in the light leans forward into the glow. The person is to her right and a waterfall of red hair cascades over her shoulder and falls to her hips. In her limp hands lays a scrunched cap that Mabel can't make out the details to, but the faintly familiar design has her stomach churning in panic.

The mysterious girl leans forward, placing her hand on the girl in the hospital bed's, and smiles despite her red-rimmed eyes and watery gaze. When she talks, it's low and scratchy, and even though Mabel's stomach crawls, she smiles faintly at the familiar girl. "Hey girl."

Mabel's smile grows, which hurts her face but it doesn't matter because she's _here_ , she's _safe._

It aches, but she purses her lips and pushes through the pain. "W-wendy."

Wendy pulls her chair forwards and clasps her hand between her own. She sees the rising anxiety in the younger girl's eyes and her gaze softens, if possible. "Hey, hey, hey…it's okay. I'm here."

"D-d-d-" Her throat's on fire, slowly spreading to the rest of her body and she no longer feels light and airy and hazy. Her body's plummeting back to earth under the realization that Wendy's red-rimmed eyes and scratchy voice _mean_ something.

She wants to say his name, but she's scared. What if he's next door, alive, like her, but saying his name could kill him? Names are powerful things, like hope, and it's killing her.

There's a heavy sigh and Wendy rubs the top of her hand with her thumbs. "Mabel…dude…I've got something to tell you." She sniffs, and instantly her stomach drops through the floor.

In the hall, nurses and doctors are calmly shuffling papers and rotating shifts.

A wail pierces the air, shattering the silence, and the pure agony coming from the scream is enough to break everyone's hearts. There's chaos as they all drop their things and run to the room that holds the little girl with the stump leg and cold brother, and the door is flung open to reveal her, on the bed.

She's sobbing, screaming as tears roll down her cheeks and sleepy parents crowd around her, shushing her and sobbing too, and on top of the bed, laid next to her, holding her close, is a red-head. In-between the two, held cautiously like gold, is a wrinkly and tear-stained blue and white baseball cap with the emblem of a pine tree sewn into the front.

* * *

" _DIPPER!"_

Another scream rips from the girl's throat and this time it's for real and she's bolting upwards, screaming, grasping at the sheets around her. She's drowning, losing herself to her watery subconscious which threatens to drown her like it did her twin.

Then she's sobbing, too loud to hear the thumps on the stairs, and suddenly the door's flung open and two sets of arms wrap around her and she can't breathe, can't seem to find the surface in the sea she's drowning in, but there's her anchor, a voice pressed to her ear that sounds like life.

"Mabel, breathe with me."

She's not there, she's not the one with arms wrapped around her, but it's enough, and she slowly rises to the surface. She breaks the top and gasps for air as the world comes spiraling back to her and there's a phone pressed into her ear as her chest heaves.

"Breathe. I've got you."

* * *

 **A/N: thank you to Lolapepsicola and ImpossibleJedi4 for the kind words, and I'll see you all on Wednesday!**

 **-a.m**


	3. Chapter III

They never even reached the border.

Gravity Falls was a small town, and in small towns news traveled fast, especially if it was tragic.

So it was no surprise that mere hours after the two Pines twins had boarded that bus to travel back to California, and she was already back in the Shack watching as the two Stans packed their bags to start their adventure together, that the phone at the counter rang at the exact same second the door was thrown open and her own phone in her back pocket buzzed.

Ford was the first to look up at the sudden intrusion of the light-hearted scene, still chuckling at his brother's antics, and the second his eyes connected with the Sheriff's, the laughter stopped.

Stan's stopped seconds afterwards, and something dark fell across her chest as it tightened with every silent second.

The thing that broke the silence marked the last time any of them would smile in almost four years.

"There's been an accident."

* * *

The air is thick and dark, as if someone draped a shadow over the scene, and the silence threatens to choke the life out of everyone present.

The first words to leave Sheriff Blubb's mouth since he uttered that single phrase is simple. It's whispered, it's cracked, and it's final, and it breaks them to the core.

"I'm so sorry."

Something passes over them, and whatever it is brings Stan to his knees, and leaves him crumpling to the floor and exhaling out a hollow laugh, something sad and lonely and _lifeless_ and it scares her, almost as much as Ford bellowing out a curse so loud it shakes her very soul.

Something wet splashes onto her collarbone and she doesn't realize it until her back hits the wall and she's sliding down, wrapping her arms around herself, as if they could protect her from the scene before her, the words being uttered, words whispered about _death, quick, coma, one left._

Fingers go to dig into her scalp but are stopped by fabric and the first sob that tears itself from her throat is from the realization of what's on her head. She pulls it off with shaking fingers as her vision blurs and all she can see is white and blue, but it's enough.

With a whimper that rises into a scream, she breaks.

There's been an accident, and one is dead, and the other is in surgery, in an induced coma, but she's afraid to ask which one applies to which twin, because neither scenario is comforting.

Is it Mabel, the quirky, lovable little girl that Wendy wishes was her little sister? Is it her, the one who she danced with by the counter all that time ago, that feels like centuries but in reality was only weeks? Is it her, the one with the soft sweaters and an even softer heart? The one who tore herself in two to try in an effort to save her family? Is it her, the one who held the key to their success all along?

Or is it Dipper, the nerdy, dorky little kid who loves her? Is it Mason, the one with the journals and the thirst for knowledge and the desire to protect those he loves, whether or not they deserve it? Is it him, the one with the birthmark, who fought and conquered by her side as a demon ruled over everything? Is it her dork, the one who confessed his love for her over what he thought was her dead body, who risked life and limb to save his twin sister, despite the circumstance?

She doesn't know which one is worse, but no matter the answer, she knows that nothing will ever be the same.

Because that girl they met at the beginning of the summer, the emotionless, stereotypical teenager who didn't care about anything except herself, is now on the floor sobbing as red and blue flash outside the windows as she tries to imagine a world without the two that changed it.

But she can't.

* * *

They were given a choice. There are two beds at the hospital, one in the ICU and hanging onto life by a thread, and other one already downstairs on a metal one inside a box. One breathing, one not. One warm, one already cold.

None of them asked which was which. None of them wanted to know.

Stan's eyes are red and his sobs are muffled by Ford's coat, but even the thick material can't muffle his whimpers that sound so similar to the nickname he called them as he ruffled their hair and sent them onto the bus.

" _Kids."_

Ford is staring ahead, one hand squeezing his twin's shoulder, but the other one is on his knee, gripping it so tightly his knuckles are solid white. There's no trace of emotion on his face, and it scares her even more than Stan.

She wasn't there when Ford was pulled from the alternate dimension, when Mabel had to choose between trusting her twin brother or her beloved Grunkle. She wasn't there when Dipper's mind and body was taken over by Bill against his will, she wasn't there when Mabel was abducted and locked within her own mind.

But she's here now. And somehow, this hurts worse.

In all the months she's worked for Stan, the amount of emotion on his face is enough to break her all over again, and no matter how hard she bites her lip, copper floods her mouth and tears wash over her eyes.

A needed distraction, green eyes find the world outside, so different than that of an hour before.

It's barely one o'clock, and already things are shifting. Things are changing all around them, and as the forest around them breaks into downtown, she can see just how things are going to be different.

Gravity Falls is a small town, and word travels fast in small towns.

* * *

She chooses downstairs.

It's morbid and wrong and the very idea of having to watch them pull back that stark white sheet in this cold, bright room makes her shiver. The knowledge that under this sheet lies one of her best friends, one that will never again smile or jump around or laugh hurts more than anything, more than the memory of losing her mother, but she has to do it.

Stan and Ford picked the upstairs room without hesitation after a scare with whoever was on the operation table flat lining. Whoever was up there, they were fighting for their life, and the fact she's down here instead of up there really hits her.

Wrapping her arms around her chest, smashing that blue and white baseball cap to her heart, she prays this is just a misunderstanding. That she'll wake up any moment in her own bed, and her father will yell she's got a letter, and she'll run downstairs and grab it.

With everything she has left she prays that she'll skip every other step and lock her door and sit on her bed and open the letter to see the familiar scribbling of her two favorite Pine twins.

Before she realizes, she's nodding to the EM across from her, whose nametag reads Mandy, and as the sheet is lifted, her heart is crushed. Brown hair is the first thing that's shown, but it doesn't matter because both have that color, the soft chestnut color that is springy and curly at the ends.

She only remembers bits and pieces after that. She was cold, so cold, so lost, so lonely, so alone, and the only thing registering is her knees hitting the floor as she crumples under the weight of the realization that her best friend is dead.

Pain is shooting from her legs as they crumple unnaturally under her, but for once, it's ignored.

Maybe she throws up. Maybe she curses, maybe she stays silent, maybe her screams rattle the windows. Maybe this is a dream, maybe it's reality, maybe this is what her life's been leading up to.

All she knows is there's a nurse calling for help, she's struggling for air, drowning on land, alone in a bright, cold room watching as her world shatters and there's a thirteen year old boy with a constellation-shaped birthmark on his forehead laying cold and unresponsive on the table before her while upstairs his sister struggles to live.

* * *

 **A/N: short, I know, and I apologize, I promise a longer update on Saturday. I figured a little peek into that day from a different perspective might be refreshing, but what do I know. I went through this thing at least fur different times and although something seemed off to me, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was.**

 **Thank you to ImpossibleJedi4, and i'll see y'all on Saturday!**

 **-a.m**


End file.
